{"id":240714,"date":"2026-02-09T07:30:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T12:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=240714"},"modified":"2026-02-10T16:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T21:15:13","slug":"more-than-disease-art-major-with-goal-of-becoming-md-humanizes-patients-on-canvas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2026\/02\/more-than-disease-art-major-with-goal-of-becoming-md-humanizes-patients-on-canvas\/","title":{"rendered":"More Than Disease: Art Major with Goal of Becoming MD Humanizes Patients on Canvas"},"content":{"rendered":"

To hear Derrick Li explain why his favorite color is terra rosa – a certain shade of red blended together from brown and burnt sienna \u2013 is like getting to know both sides of the painting and drawing<\/a> major who\u2019s also premed.<\/p>\n

Red is \u201calive,\u201d he says, the color of blood, the color of muscle, and as versatile on his artist\u2019s palette as any other color next to it. He adds white to a smear of terra rosa to get the color of skin. Fresh from the tube, he builds a rock canyon stroke by stroke.<\/p>\n

One layer of paint at a time, he adds variations of terra rosa to his canvases, building up images from his mind\u2019s eye: people who\u2019ve come to mean so much to him, people who\u2019ve put their trust in him.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re people. Not sick people or well people or in remission people. Just people he\u2019s studied, like a doctor would, only he does so now as an artist learning the shape of their mouth and curve of their shoulder.<\/p>\n

\"A
Derrick Li ’28 (SFA) photographs his subjects, then arranges the images on the computer to get the exact scene he then wants to paint. (Photo courtesy of Derrick Li)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such an intimate experience, painting a person,\u201d Li \u201928 (SFA) says. \u201cIt\u2019s so intimate and so universal at the same time. The surfaces of our body are so complex, but when you think about it in terms of painting, it\u2019s just a blob that light is hitting. The same way you paint a sphere is the same way you paint a nose. You find the highlight and see how the light interacts with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Li has been painting only a handful of years, starting as a sophomore at Avon Old Farms School in a requisite art class he thought would be easy, no final exam. Mr. Calibey and Mrs. Pinton, he thought, would be just any old teachers, certainly not two he\u2019d come to know in the art studio after the final bell rang each day, certainly not two he\u2019d think to thank at graduation.<\/p>\n

After all, he\u2019s a self-described \u201cSTEM kid,\u201d both he and his brother Spencer, thriving on the challenge of science labs and math assignments. Li says he always wanted to be a doctor, early on because of a desire to help others, later on because of how the doctors helped Spencer.<\/p>\n

UConn\u2019s Special Program in Medicine<\/a> drew him to Storrs with the ability to grow his love of art by majoring in it, while taking premed classes like anatomy and physiology, physics, and organic chemistry almost for fun.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople make this crazy distinction between art and science, but they\u2019re really just two sides of the same coin to me,\u201d he says, using the analogy of putting a newspaper under a microscope to see the dot matrix that gives letters their form – that\u2019s science. Then, zooming out to see the full word, full sentence, full page – that\u2019s art. And \u201cthat balance is really important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I found a place to throw my thoughts\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Like most young artists, Li says he started off by simply drawing a circle, a half-interested teenager\u2019s scrawl, one end of the shape connecting to the other. But after adding shadow to one side, highlight to the other, that circle popped off the paper into three dimensions, \u201cand then I fell in love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four years on, he\u2019s immersed in figurative painting, awarded an IDEA Grant<\/a> from UConn\u2019s Office of Undergraduate Research<\/a> to create a series of works featuring people who\u2019ve overcome critical illnesses, not in hospital beds or with IV drips, but in everyday situations doing everyday things.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy brother was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia when he was 17,\u201d Li says. \u201cI was a freshman in high school, it was mid-COVID, and he spent around four months in the ICU and then a year in and out of inpatient oncology units. Only one parent was allowed in the room at a time, so my parents would switch back and forth. Siblings weren\u2019t even in the picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was around the time he drew a circle, and it leapt from the page to bop him with an “aha” moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent a lot of time in my head, and my mental health probably wasn\u2019t the greatest,\u201d he admits of that time. \u201cBut when I found painting, I found a place to throw my thoughts. It was an escape for me. I wouldn\u2019t have to think about anything else. The only thing that mattered was the canvas that was in front of me, and that was very therapeutic. This project is a reflection of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slowly his brother regained health, remission achieved, and Li came to know other young people, made friends with those near his age, who too were sick, really sick. As a counselor at The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp the last two summers, he bore witness to the time a 12-year-old stepped into a swimming pool – for the first time ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir whole lives before coming to camp have been characterized by their disease, like that\u2019s who they are, it\u2019s core to their identity, and I just think that\u2019s so sad. You\u2019re so much more than that,\u201d he says. \u201cMy brother is so much more than the disease he had. I\u2019m trying to paint these people in a way that shows who they are, normal people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
Derrick Li ’28 (SFA) says he admires the style of French Impressionist Edgar Degas, who famously left visible early sketches under the final layers of paint in his finished works. (Photo courtesy of Derrick Li)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Contemplative, Quiet, Wholly Focused<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Using the oldest of teens from his newfound friend group as live models, he asks them to take a pose – just an average pose, legs crossed on a chair, head cocked to the left, or laterally lying on the floor. He picks up a camera and snaps a shot.<\/p>\n

Photography, he says, is much like painting: finding your frame, composing the image within it. He employs a computer to edit in a vase of flowers or overstuffed armchair, getting onto paper the full scene he sees in his head. Sketching that modified image precedes the actual painting of it.<\/p>\n

Spencer never actually stepped in a river when he posed for Li in a studio at UConn, but that\u2019s how he\u2019s portrayed in the centerpiece of the series, facing forward hand resting on a rock with a second version of him from behind, lifting his legs as he climbs toward shore.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it would be a cathartic moment,\u201d Li says of the photoshoot, \u201cbut it was just like any other time I hung out with him, which, I suppose, is kind of the whole point of the project. When you\u2019re taking photos, you want your models to feel natural. If you ask your model to pose like this, it\u2019s going to look posed when you paint it. It\u2019s best to just ask them to sit, and if they\u2019re a really good model, they fold into these gorgeous poses naturally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alone in a dark studio, only a spotlight directed on the canvas, Li unloads from his black- and-yellow toolbox tubes of terra rosa paint, brushes wide and narrow. He\u2019s contemplative as he works, quiet, wholly focused.<\/p>\n

He describes the process as somewhat surreal, tranquil even. Just him and the person on the canvas together for hours, as he sculpts their nose and gets right the lift of their brow. It\u2019s given him an appreciation for life, he says, as he studies the way their clavicle connects to their neck.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no such thing as permanence in painting. If something\u2019s not quite right, Li says he embraces its \u201cfluidity,\u201d being able to sand off what he just painted and start again. His UConn professors have helped him see that as opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a mental exercise,\u201d he says of painting. \u201cYou\u2019re balancing how the figure interacts with other objects in the painting. There\u2019s also the emotional side of it as well, like \u2018How does this make me feel? Why am I painting in this way?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cYou would think there\u2019s a crazy big gap between drawing a circle and painting a person, but, honestly, when you paint you have to think about these things as just forms,\u201d he adds. \u201cYour face is just a more complex sphere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Picture
Derrick Li ’28 (SFA) paints the background of an unfinished painting for his project, “Study of Disease Through Oil Paint.” Li, who is in UConn’s Special Program in Medicine, is a painting and drawing major who’ll graduate with a BFA before going on to the School of Medicine to become a doctor. (Kimberly Phillips\/UConn Today)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Capturing the essence of a person means getting right the curl of their mouth. An errant brushstroke can make someone skeptical, irritated, hurried, innocent, he maintains. In an instant, a subject is morphed.<\/p>\n

Li says that\u2019s one reason – for him at least – art is harder than science.<\/p>\n

Twenty hours on a painting doesn\u2019t guarantee satisfactory work, let alone great. Flip that, he says, and an equal amount of time studying for a science exam can almost ensure a grade that\u2019s near the top of the scale. Art is unpredictable, science is factual.<\/p>\n

But both take root in the human condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cScience is a huge field. I was always interested in helping people, but you can help plenty of people with science in plenty of different ways,\u201d he says. \u201cSeeing the doctors, the way they presented themselves and the way they made my parents, who were in an extremely stressful situation, feel better \u2013 it was admirable, and I want to embody that trait.\u201d<\/p>\n

One might say, if Li was the subject of a painting instead of the artist, he\u2019d be the one behind the boulder, flanked by patients and their families, helping to push the rock out of a red canyon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe doctors were there for us every step of the way,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s the kind of person I want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The series of paintings that comprise Li\u2019s IDEA Grant project, \u201cStudy of Disease Through Oil Paint,\u201d will be on display Feb. 5-14 in the VAIS Gallery, Room 109, in the Art Building.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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